Saturday 22 November 2008 - 6th Folder 6th Picture

My friend Lisa got tagged for a fun tag. If you go to your sixth folder in your My Pictures folder, and select the 6th picture in that folder, post the image and details if you can remember them! She didn't tag me because I NEVER return the favor LOL but this one is pretty easy so I thought it would be fun.

This is a picture from a few years ago when I first started putting Lori and Wiggle out together with other horses. They were having a good run and letting off steam and we still had a bit of grass for them to eat.

If anyone else feels like joining in go for it, I am supposed to nominate 5 or 6 people but will leave it up to each of you as individuals as to whether you want to do it or not.

Hope everyone is having a good weekend.

Lori

Friday 21 November 2008 - Home Front & Mustang update

We have had snow and sub freezing temps the past few days which I am dreading more of and this is a picture I took of Cayenne in the field yesterday evening (it was still snowing) while they were turned out so their stables could be cleaned. She looked so sad and it is a reflection of my feelings today.

The mare that we brought back from Iowa a few weeks ago has aborted the fetus she was carrying to be born next year. She must have been 4 - 5 months along and this was very distressing. It was a stud colt and probably would have also been palomino like my new baby Goldie who would have been his full sister. I am looking into the possibiity that she was carrying twins but can't be sure right now. Twins arent uncommon in horses but their surviving full term is not common at all although there have been many who have. So it was a sad day for me yesterday, seeing that little thing about 12 - 18 inches long with all of its features, ears, tail dock, perfectly formed legs and boy parts, nostrils, tongue and hooves broke my heart.

Judging by the response I didnt get the last time that I broached the Mustang subject it makes me think that either everyone is too busy with their own lives (believe me I know all about that), they are not really animal lovers and dont see the importance of this subject or they are too shy to make a stand and be heard publically.

I got the newsletter for one of my horse Magazines that I submit to and read the other day and was very pleasantly surprised to read this article :

http://www.thehorse.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ID=13130

I subsequently asked Carol Walker one of the members of a few equine photographer and artist groups that I belong to who I have referred to before on previous posts, about it. I am going to quote her reply to my question on how factual this information is which I thought might be very useful to those of you that do care and believe me every e-mail towards this cause can make a difference, we are hanging on by a slim thread at the moment but this has given a glimmer of hope.

Quote:

"Dear Lori, It's not too good to be true - it is true, but there are still issues. Yes, Madeleine Pickens, wife of T. Boone Pickens has announced she will take the horses in long and short term holding - and the BLM is giving till the end of next year for the puchase of the land and relocation of the horses to occur - and Deputy Director Bisson of the BLM says he has a couple of backups of other individuals as well. However, it was extremely disturbing to me as I sat at the BLM wild horse and burro advisory board meeting and the advisory board had a recommendation to sell horses abroad - this would really mean a death sentence with slaughterhouses in Canada and Mexico - and only one member of the advisory board, Robin Lohnes, was not in favor of keeping euthansia of the 33,000 horses in long term holding as an option. Also, the problem remains - if Pickens takes the horses in long and short term holding, this frees up all the spaces for the BLM to continue rounding up more horses - they have planned possibly 5000 to be removed this year - one roundup is going on in Utah right now. I got interviewed on my way home from the meeting on Tues by channel 4 in Denver:

Video

Article

So if you are asking what can I do, this is from the Cloud Foundation: What You Can Do Now: With a new administration we have the chance to change BLM’s poor management of wild horses. Please contact President-Elect Obama’s office at: Link

• Request that Mr. Obama appoints a Secretary of the Interior who cares about our public lands and our wild horses - the BLM needs change from the top down!

• Write about your hopes for the future of wild horses in America—the BLM’s “management to extinction” policies must be changed "

Carol has also updated with this news:

"They interviewed me just after having gotten home from the advisory board meeting. The BLM will continue to round up horses this coming year - they are currently rounding up one herd in Utah, the Sulfer herd, they will be rounding up a herd in Utah in 2 weeks and removing 447 horses, they plan to do "emergency" removals in Nevada of about 2000 - 3000 horses and in Wyoming they will remove horses if the State of WY demands it, and they are also planning to remove 60 horses from the Pryor Mountains. Carol Walker "

The statement that got to me the most was in the one article that Carol linked us to, the last two paragraphs "There are eight million head of cattle on public lands and only 23,000 horses. Who's eating the forage?" she asked.
"These are our public lands," Walker added. "These are our horses. We should have a say in how they’re administered and we don't."

I am going to post this as it is and hope that all the links work and are correct. I will check them after pubishing and make any changes if need be.

Okay that is my bit for the soapbox again for now. I hope some of you will take the time to read this and give it some thought, in a way the American people are being led down the same path as the mustangs and we are willingly let it happen because we are not being told the truth and being educated on the facts.

((((Hugs))) and thanks for listening.

Lori

Monday 17 November 2008

We woke up to a snow covered deck this morning. It wasnt sticking to the ground because the recent rain and the ground is still a bit warm for it so it melts. It settles on the roofs and branches but that is about all. It snowed gently and sometimes quite hard all day and our temperature was just below freezing all day. The wind is what makes it unpleasant. I filled all the bird feeders today and the birds swarmed them. These little gold finches with their winter woolies made a feast of theirs, thistle seeds, and this is the most birds I have seen on the sock at one time. There are 5 here, one is slightly behind the other but there was a sixth at one stage. Of course the white streaks are the snow, the wind was blowing which makes it very cold out there.

Gonna make this a short one, after my last few posts I will give you all a break.

Lori

Sunday - 16 November 2008

I am going to address the post from yesterday and the replies I have had from a few people regarding this situation in a seperate post but wanted to do a post as an update on what is happening here on a personal level for those of you who don't want to get involved in the other matter.

This is the one filly I brought back from Iowa a few weeks back, she is the two year old filly Dawn's momma and her name is DB April Dawn because she was born on 1st April 2002. Now bear in mind that this filly has just spent nearly 4 years in a huge pasture with no human contact other than to be fed with a herd of mares and a stallion.

She had two weeks training on her to break her to ride before she went to Iowa and only had one foal out of the three foaling seasons which was Dawn. The young lady with her is Kendal, the daughter of a friend of ours who used to come over and did a bit of work with April for a few weeks before she went to Iowa. Kendal has never ridden solo, without being on a lead rope and someone on the other end of it. We took April out of our field, worked her for a bit, put a bridle and saddle on her and Kendal jumped up on her and was walking and trotting around the arena like they had been doing it all for years, after only about 5 minutes!!! Not only is Kendal a natural horsewoman (it is amazing to watch someone who "has it" when they first start riding) but April is a great minded mare. We are hoping that Kendal and April will be able to compete in the 4H County and Indiana State Fairs next year along with BB the mare who's picture I had in yesterday's post. BB will be her halter prospect and April will be her riding prospect. This is a very dedicated 11 year old and is not happy with someone doing the work for her and then handing her the reins, she does all of it herself. I do have pictures of her looking at the camera, but thought with the internet the way it is at the moment I would rather post this one. Here April is just following her around without any lead rope and turning stopping and walking off with Kendal with no aides other than her voice and body language. I am very excited about this venture, I am not competitive so this is a great opportunity to get some of our horses out there for people to see and then maybe we can sell some of them to good caring homes. Hopefully she will get a few Pinto shows in next year too.

We used to do Catblogging Friday here on blogger and I have got so far behind that I rarely post as you have all seen, so here is a belated Friday catblogging picture. It is my barn cat Sylvester having a good old scratch. He is my best mouser in the barn LOL.

It is absolutely freezing here today, we had about 1.75 inches of rain over two days which was great but now the temps are plummeting and we are barely coming above freezing with wind chills below freezing. Al the horses are indoors because the wind is blowing, if it wasnt windy I would turn them out but the wind just makes it unbearable to be out there and I am sure the horses feel the same way.

I will be making another post later, I am just preparing it and trying to get some facts and links to go along with it. It is going to be a looooong post be warned LOL.

((((Hugs)))))

Lori

xx

It has been a while again and I really wanted to follow up on my last blog entry about the Wild Mustangs. Below is a picture I took of one of our mares the other day, her name is IMA Blue Dudette, she is a Blueroan Paint mare and has a beautiful temperament.

On the Mustangs story I will address some of the comments, firstly Carmi it is so good to hear from you again!!! Thanks for stopping by. Yes the Mustang saga does go much much further and I am going to do a bit more searching on links etc. to better educate myself and hopefullly pass on my findings. I know there is huge pressure on BLM at the moment and believe me these people are being followed very closely and I dont think will be able to pull off what they are planning. There are apparantly about 30 000 wild mustangs in "holding facilities" which is costing a fortune when if they had just managed them in the wild better it wouldnt be costing them 27 million a year. The so called animal rights people say that adopting the horses out is the answer but these poor animals can end up in homes where people know nothing about horses let alone wild ones, and there are thousand of horses from all over the industry including the racehorse industry horses standing starving in "self proclaimed rescue holdings" and people's back yards because the novelty has worn off or in these economic times they "cant afford to feed them" which still doesnt explain why they dont get water either. I have unspeakable pictures in my mind of these poor animals that I will never be able to erase. Be very wary of these associations if you are thinking of donating money as some of them are run by unscrupulous people who only have their stomachs to worry about let alone the horses, and I bet you will find some of them smoke too! For the price of a box of cigarettes you can get a bale of hay which will more than adequately feed a horse for a day (60lb square bales of good grass or alfalfa).

I could go on about this all day but will try to find articles that will back up what I am saying and post them. Suffice it to say (and this is my opinion) PETA made a big mistake having the horse slaughter houses closed in the USA, because all that has done is make our horses suffer longer cramped journeys in terrible conditions to Mexico and Canada where they have processing plants. In Mexico they also have blood sports that involve horses. I wont go there right now. If PETA had focused their money and efforts on improving the handling and transporting of horses for slaughter (for whatever reason they have to find themseves on a journey to such a place) it would have been far more appropriate. I choose not to eat horse meat and that is everyone's perogative but I draw the line when it is making thousands of animals suffer every day needlessly.

Photogchic, they have implemented birth control on the Mustangs in some areas, I am not sure how successful they have been but it is too little too late. You can find a story here from a few days ago in the newsletter of one of the magazines I shoot for called The Horse

http://www.thehorse.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ID=13066

I dont think you have to register to view the article, if anyone has problems it is well worth registering, it is free and has all sorts of useful horse stuff in it.

Off my soapbox! and I hope I dont get flamed for any of the above, these thoughts are purely my opinion and the last I heard there was freedom of speach in USA.

We got our first snow today!!!!! Who would believe a week ago we were wearing T shirts and having temps in the 70s!! Below is a pic of it from inside our house, it didnt stick because it wasnt quite cold enough to keep it frozen once it had hit the wet ground from the rain.

Okay it feels good to get that off my chest and I am sorry if my next few posts follow along the same lines but it is something I really need to come to terms with and writing about it helps me tremendously. I promise I will try to find some pretty pictures to post as well so that if you dont want to read this type of stuff you can just look at the pictures. It is very personal (like politics) and sometimes things are better left unsaid and I respect that.

((((Hugs)))))

Lori
xx

Monday 3 November 2008 - Our Wild Mustangs

Today I am devoting my post to the Wild Mustangs of the American West. This has become a very controversial subject and one that I am also passionate about although I have not seen them for myself.

The post today is made in the hope that it will educate some of us as to exactly what is happening to these beautiful animals, it is not what we are being led to believe is happening. One of my fellow photographers, Carol Walker, has been photographing these herds for many years and if you visit her website you can find all the information that you need to see just what a tragic and urgent situation this is. She published a book and calendar this year with photos of all the herds she has followed and come to know intimately and tells what is happening to them. She is offering the book and calendar together at a special price for the holidays and I hope that you will each consider purchasing one of them because part of the proceeds go back to helping these horses and if their story doesnt bring tears to your eyes I will be surprised. I am going to post a few links to the book and calendar which is for purchase and to photographs that she took recently during a "round-up" by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). I have to warn you that these images are VERY disturbing and the fact that she and her colleagues had no option but to sit on the sidelines and record the events as they unfolded must have been very painful for them.

I am also posting a link to a second photographer, Cyndie Planck, who I am associated with who had the wonderful opportunity of photographing wild horses in a different area to the ones that Carol covers but these animals are suffering a similar fate and again, take a look at the calendar, it would make a wonderful Xmas gift and also shows the beauty surrounding these animals.

Carol Walker:
http://www.wildhoofbeats.com/

Warning the following link has some disturbing images

http://www.livingimagescjw.com/CLIENTS/08SandwashRoundup/08SandwashRoundup.htm

Some other links but I am sure with a bit of research you will find many that actually show what is actually happening is not what we are hearing.

http://thecloudfoundation.org/blmthreat.html

http://www.wildhorsepreservation.com/

Cyndie Planck:

If you click on the July entries, you will find photos and stories of Cyndie's trip. Be sure to view all the entries for July as there are a quite a few relating to the Mustangs and the photos are beautiful

http://cyndieplanckphotography.blogspot.com/2008_07_01_archive.html

This is her business website
http://www.cyndieplanck.com/

and you can purchase a lovely calendar here:
http://cyndieplanckphotography.blogspot.com/2008/08/now-available.html

All of this goes hand in hand with the closing of the horse slaughter houses in the USA and the continued battle against abuse that horses going to slaughter have to endure and these mustangs are mostly going to end up in Mexico and Canada for processing. This is a whole nother story. I will get into that next.

I am sorry this is such a morbid post, but if I can educate even one person on what is happening it will be worth it. There are many people who are involved in the horse industry that dont know this is happening let alone people out of the horse industry.

(((((Hugs))))))

Lori
xx